San Pellegrino World 50 Best Restaurants 2012

[Broken English]

I didn't see a thread on the newest list, so I thought it may be worthwhile to discuss.

The list can be found at http://www.theworlds50best.com/awards/1-50-winners/

A few surprises for me, with Dinner by Heston Blumenthal so high on the list, and the absence of Next and WD-50 from the top 100.

Good to see some Aussie expats like Brett Graham and David Thompson receiving some much deserved love, though for me Australia was under represented. In my mind both Marque and Attica deserve top 50 status, and there are a couple of others that could easily be in the top 100, like Sepia for instance.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Broken English (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

I didn't see a thread on the newest list, so I thought it may be worthwhile to discuss.

The list can be found at http://www.theworlds50best.com/awards/1-50-winners/

A few surprises for me, with Dinner by Heston Blumenthal so high on the list, and the absence of Next and WD-50 from the top 100.

Good to see some Aussie expats like Brett Graham and David Thompson receiving some much deserved love, though for me Australia was under represented. In my mind both Marque and Attica deserve top 50 status, and there are a couple of others that could easily be in the top 100, like Sepia for instance.

Quay and Tets maybe shouldn't be there. Cutler and Co should be there. Marque and Attica should easily be in the 50. Maybe even Vue. Sepia? I thought it was nice enough but I was really surprised to hear they got 3 hats.

[mkayahara]

Given the way voting works, I'm not that surprised by Next's absence: I can't imagine enough of the jurors were able to secure tickets for them to make it onto the list.

I continue to be disappointed by Canada's complete absence from the list, though. I don't really understand what the problem is: the fact that we're lumped in with the US Midwest? The fact that we don't have a strong enough brand identity for jurors to make a point of visiting here? Or does every single one of our restaurants, nationwide, really suck that much?

[BadRabbit]

Given the way voting works, I'm not that surprised by Next's absence: I can't imagine enough of the jurors were able to secure tickets for them to make it onto the list.

I continue to be disappointed by Canada's complete absence from the list, though. I don't really understand what the problem is: the fact that we're lumped in with the US Midwest? The fact that we don't have a strong enough brand identity for jurors to make a point of visiting here? Or does every single one of our restaurants, nationwide, really suck that much?

It's because these lists are BS. What the list should be called is "50 best restaurants in cities that are fashionable to visit or live in."

Nobody is ever going to convince me that all but one of the best restaurants in the US are within 75 miles of NYC or SF.

Edited May 2, 2012 by BadRabbit (log)

[Broken English]

Given the way voting works, I'm not that surprised by Next's absence: I can't imagine enough of the jurors were able to secure tickets for them to make it onto the list.

I continue to be disappointed by Canada's complete absence from the list, though. I don't really understand what the problem is: the fact that we're lumped in with the US Midwest? The fact that we don't have a strong enough brand identity for jurors to make a point of visiting here? Or does every single one of our restaurants, nationwide, really suck that much?

Yeah, that could be the reason for Next's absence, yet El Bulli topped the list all those years, and Momofuku Ko is on there.

I don't know about the rest of Canada, but there isn't any restaurants of top 50 calibre in Toronto that I know of/have been to.

[The Fedora]

Given the way voting works, I'm not that surprised by Next's absence: I can't imagine enough of the jurors were able to secure tickets for them to make it onto the list.

I continue to be disappointed by Canada's complete absence from the list, though. I don't really understand what the problem is: the fact that we're lumped in with the US Midwest? The fact that we don't have a strong enough brand identity for jurors to make a point of visiting here? Or does every single one of our restaurants, nationwide, really suck that much?

It's because these lists are BS. What the list should be called is "50 best restaurants in cities that are fashionable to visit or live in."

Nobody is ever going to convince me that all but one of the best restaurants in the US are within 75 miles of NYC or SF.

I literally could not agree with this anymore. You're also not going to convince me that just about all of the best places to eat in the world are fine dining. This is a list of what's hip and has name recognition for the most part.

[Karri]

I have no problem believing that the best food in the world is made in fine dining restaurants. On another note, the one at number 10. 11 Madison Park, I had a chance to read their cookbook at work a few days ago, and the food they are making is amazing.

And the reason great restaurants are in big cities is simple math. It takes a truly unique idea and a lack of competition to be able to sustain a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

Edited May 3, 2012 by Karri (log)

[BadRabbit]

I have no problem believing that the best food in the world is made in fine dining restaurants. On another note, the one at number 10. 11 Madison Park, I had a chance to read their cookbook at work a few days ago, and the food they are making is amazing.

And the reason great restaurants are in big cities is simple math. It takes a truly unique idea and a lack of competition to be able to sustain a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

This may be the most ridiculous post I've ever seen on eGullet. You must be a New Yorker if you actually believe that everywhere in the US not NYC or SF is "the middle of nowhere." It's a profound lack of perspective that only seems to exist in the five boroughs.

It's also bullshit that a major city is needed to support a world class restaurant. I've eaten at 3 restaurants in that top 100 and have had as good a meal at places not on the list that are in metro areas of under 1M people.

[The Fedora]

I have no problem believing that the best food in the world is made in fine dining restaurants. On another note, the one at number 10. 11 Madison Park, I had a chance to read their cookbook at work a few days ago, and the food they are making is amazing.

And the reason great restaurants are in big cities is simple math. It takes a truly unique idea and a lack of competition to be able to sustain a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

If the question were what restaurant is doing the most innovative food or the most modern food I would have 100% no problem believing they would be likely fine dining in a large metro area, but that isn't what the list allegedly is. It stands the reason that the best restaurant serves the most delicious food because I had always assumed good food tastes good. I remember reading reviews of elBulli where the diners made remarks along the line of "well, food like this isn't being judged on how good it tastes" or "it's hard to quantify this kind of cooking in terms of taste" and there is a certain novelty to toying with textures or preconceived expectations. There is also something about riffs on classic dishes with modern technique, but when asked people like Thomas Keller say their favorite food is something incredibly simple, something from their childhood. Thumbing through Grant Achatz biography I remember a story he tells when he realizes he's just had the best meal of his life cooked by someone's grandma in a hole in the wall after being thoroughly disappointed by several three star restaurants.

That being the case, I just cannot believe that anything at Noma, Alinea or Can Roca is just that much mindblowingly more delicious than the perfect ramen or perfect po boy that they deserve to be on the list and the hole in the walls don't. That isn't even to say anything about the restaurants in between. I guess it has a lot to do with how you define the best, and my definition is just the most delicious food, even ignoring the frill and price tag to match, the most delicious food in the world is probably not being served in those restaurants.

[Broken English]

I think it's pretty safe to assume that the list is fine dining based, and a reflection of what's hot right now. Whether that is the right way to do it is up for debate, but it is what it is.

I'm very surprised by Eleven Madison Park being so high on the list. The few people who've been that I've spoken to have said it is average at best. My old chef went last year and said that the food was all lukewarm and the sauces had skins on them from sitting around too long. Another chef friend spoke of cocktail orders forgotten, slow service and mediocre food. Not having been, I can't really comment, but in a 3 Michelin star restaurant that has been hyped like crazy, I would have expected better reviews.

[Karri]

I have no problem believing that the best food in the world is made in fine dining restaurants. On another note, the one at number 10. 11 Madison Park, I had a chance to read their cookbook at work a few days ago, and the food they are making is amazing.

And the reason great restaurants are in big cities is simple math. It takes a truly unique idea and a lack of competition to be able to sustain a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

This may be the most ridiculous post I've ever seen on eGullet. You must be a New Yorker if you actually believe that everywhere in the US not NYC or SF is "the middle of nowhere." It's a profound lack of perspective that only seems to exist in the five boroughs.

It's also bullshit that a major city is needed to support a world class restaurant. I've eaten at 3 restaurants in that top 100 and have had as good a meal at places not on the list that are in metro areas of under 1M people.

I am not from the US, I represent a country that has one restaurant on that list there, Chez Dominique, a 2 Michelin Star restaurant in the center of Helsinki. And if you had read my post thoroughly you would notice that I said with the right concept you can sustain a restaurant outside of a major city. For example el Bulli in Rosas or The Fat Duck in Bray. Talking about the Fat Duck, I read in Modernist Cuisine that before Mr. Blumenthal got his third star he was in serious financial trouble and almost had to close the restaurant. This is the point I am trying to make. And yes, I have had amazing experiences at top end restaurants, a friend of mine recently dined at Noma, and said it was a huge disappointment, I can't remember all the dishes he complained about but he said some of them were just taking the piss. The appetizer was a live shrimp in a pickle jar filled with ice, he was served a rock and told to eat the moss, etc.

edit: Oh an on the chefs who say that they like to cook simiple dishes, etc. I have no trouble believing that, I too at home don't cook what I cook at work. I like to make traditional macaroni or potato casseroles from my home country. They taste great, of course. Personally if I rate a restaurant I place the most emphasis on the quality and taste of the food. I don't care that much for decor unless it's something completely new. But ingredients that have been processed and cooked perfectly usually happen in fine dining restaurants, where there is adequate staff to do it all.

And I'm sad to hear about Madison Park, as I said the book looked amazing!

Edited May 3, 2012 by Karri (log)

[mkayahara]

It's always easy to find anecdotal counter-evidence to lists like these. It would be nice to believe that every single plate coming out of a Top 50 restaurant is nothing short of transcendent, but of course everyone has an off day sometimes. So is it possible for a good day at a minor restaurant to be better than a bad day at a celebrated one? Of course. That's why the results for lists like these are tallied from hundreds of jurors, rather than being the work of a single critic. Mind you, the drawback to that is that when you're working with a large pool of people with limited resources (both time and money), fashion will dictate their choices to a large extent. That's why it's always interesting to see major moves up or down the list. And, of course, it's the root of my own frustration with this list: Canada is simply not seen as a fashionable fine dining destination today, much as Denmark wasn't seen as one until a few years ago.

Anecdotally, I ate at Eleven Madison Park just last week, and it was one of the finest restaurant experiences I've ever had anywhere.

As for the question of whether or not the most delicious food comes exclusively out of fine dining restaurants, I think we need to remember that it's intended to be a list of the "best restaurants" not the "restaurants serving the most delicious food." Innovation, service, decor and myriad other factors come into play in determining what the best restaurants in the world are. Food is one factor, and should be the most important factor, but it's not the only factor.

None of this is to suggest that this list isn't flawed, of course. But there's no way to make such a list objective, or perfectly accurate. As always, the primary goal of any ranking is to get people talking about the ranking. In that sense, they've accomplished their mission.

[BadRabbit]

I have no problem believing that the best food in the world is made in fine dining restaurants. On another note, the one at number 10. 11 Madison Park, I had a chance to read their cookbook at work a few days ago, and the food they are making is amazing.

And the reason great restaurants are in big cities is simple math. It takes a truly unique idea and a lack of competition to be able to sustain a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

This may be the most ridiculous post I've ever seen on eGullet. You must be a New Yorker if you actually believe that everywhere in the US not NYC or SF is "the middle of nowhere." It's a profound lack of perspective that only seems to exist in the five boroughs.

It's also bullshit that a major city is needed to support a world class restaurant. I've eaten at 3 restaurants in that top 100 and have had as good a meal at places not on the list that are in metro areas of under 1M people.

I am not from the US, I represent a country that has one restaurant on that list there, Chez Dominique, a 2 Michelin Star restaurant in the center of Helsinki. And if you had read my post thoroughly you would notice that I said with the right concept you can sustain a restaurant outside of a major city. For example el Bulli in Rosas or The Fat Duck in Bray. Talking about the Fat Duck, I read in Modernist Cuisine that before Mr. Blumenthal got his third star he was in serious financial trouble and almost had to close the restaurant. This is the point I am trying to make. And yes, I have had amazing experiences at top end restaurants, a friend of mine recently dined at Noma, and said it was a huge disappointment, I can't remember all the dishes he complained about but he said some of them were just taking the piss. The appetizer was a live shrimp in a pickle jar filled with ice, he was served a rock and told to eat the moss, etc.

edit: Oh an on the chefs who say that they like to cook simiple dishes, etc. I have no trouble believing that, I too at home don't cook what I cook at work. I like to make traditional macaroni or potato casseroles from my home country. They taste great, of course. Personally if I rate a restaurant I place the most emphasis on the quality and taste of the food. I don't care that much for decor unless it's something completely new. But ingredients that have been processed and cooked perfectly usually happen in fine dining restaurants, where there is adequate staff to do it all.

And I'm sad to hear about Madison Park, as I said the book looked amazing!

I apologize for assuming you were a New Yorker. The NY-centric attitude is so pervasive here it's usually a safe assumption.

I read your post thoroughly but given the context of the posts it was in response to it didn't read as you seem to think it does. It read like you think NYC and SF are the only "major" cities in the US or Canada and that someone would have to have no competition and a truly unique idea to have a world class restaurant in say Austin or Atlanta.

The fact is that there are truly amazing restaurants all over the US that will never be even mentioned on these lists because the food community in the US by and large considers NYC and SF as the only places that matter. The only way a restaurant in the south would ever be even considered is if Thomas Keller decides to open something in New Orleans.

I've spent a considerable amount of time in NYC, SF, Chicago and New Orleans and can say without a doubt that the top restaurants in NO have consistently outperformed the top places from the other 3. That's anecdotal and therefore not worth a whole lot but neither are the opinions of a bunch of jurors who by and large aren't going to spend any time outside of a few select metro areas.

Edited May 3, 2012 by BadRabbit (log)

[Karri]

I understand exactly what you mean. My homecountry of Finland boasts such a meager spending capital for fine dining experiences that it is almost impossible to run a succesful business there... But that is more of a cultural thing than an actual matter of poverty. I find that Finnish people are almost instinctively drawn to foods they find as safe, only now a younger more active generation has begun to rise who demand 'bang for their buck', and this has now slowly started a roll towards new and exciting restaurants opening up.

I actually read an article about the chef of the restaurant I mentioned before, Hans Välimäki. He said that just to be nominated within the top 100 is the true honor, because it is virtually impossible to discern a ranking between all the thousands of restaurants in the world, and who should be the first, the second, etc.

[ChrisTaylor]

Went to Attica, #63 on the list, tonight. It was my second visit. It being (well, the day before) Mother's Day, I took along my dearest mother for her first degustation experience.

Apologies for the quality of the photos--I was using an iPhone in the corner of a dark room.

Along with the obligatory housemade butter, the sourdough rye is served with a smoked olive oil emulsion. Thanks, xantham gum! The powder, in case you're wondering, is black salt.

An appetiser of walnut puree with walnut oil. There are, as you can see, two versions of this dish. My mother ordered a vegetarian degustation without mushrooms (she disagrees with the texture of mushrooms) so her walnut was topped with, well, walnut. Mine was topped with shaved pine mushrooms. The mushrooms were the strongest flavour and for a good couple of moments I thought that maybe they had stolen the show, but no, the flavour of walnut crept up, ninjastyle, and eventually made itself known.

Two different takes on a theme. A rye-crumbed shallot (part of the vegetarian menu, obviously) and a rye-crumbed mussel (which was steamed at some point, I think). The crust was very crisp and the contents very soft. No chewy shellfish here.

A shiitake and bonito dashi jacked with licorice flowers. The mushroom-less alternative was based on a vegetarian dashi but was otherwise the same.

The first course of the standard degustation: tomato with 'eleven basils' (all grown, I was told, in the restaurant's garden) and smoked black seasame seeds. The strip of red capsicum was slow-cooked in olive oil. There are also a few stray hazelnuts loitering about. The smoke/sesame element was really subtle, avoiding the trap of being too strongly flavoured.

'Textures of cauliflower', inspired by some mountain in New Zealand (the chef is originally from New Zealand) and not some scene from Scarface. At one point, a fixture of the menu was a similarily presented dish of 'snow crab' (the 'snow' came from powdered horseradish and, yes, the crab underneath the mountain was snow crab). This was the first course proper for the vegetarian degustation. The tomato/basil/etc course would come later on the vegetarian menu.

Marron, leek and native pepper with a surprisingly subtle mussel and prosciutto broth. Marrons, by the way, are native freshwater crayfish and are a fixture of Australian degustation menus.

The vegetarian version of this dish arrived at the same time.

Seemingly unchanged since I was last at Attica was the 'simple dish of a potato slow-cooked in the earth in which it was grown'. Inspired by the hangi

of New Zealand, potatoes are cooked in, well, dirt. This is a very, very, very nice potato. The sour cream-style base is a nice nod to the baked potatoes sometimes sold as fast food. This dish appeared at the same time on both versions of the menu.

At this point, my mother's tomato/etc dish arrived (unchanged from the standard menu) and I got

'Meat from the pearl oyster.' Not being a fan of many forms of cooked oyster (I really dislike the texture) I wasn't looking forward to this dish, but I started to calm down when I was told the shaving makes the texture a bit more like scallop. I don't know if that's quite true, but it certainly had lost the ... unpleasant texture that, say, poached oysters can have.

We were both served the sweet potato with almonds, egg yolks and cheddar. The sweet potatoes were slow-roasted in a salt crust. This was, as you'd expect, a very rich dish.

Wallaby fillet, served rare. Nice to see this on the menu--much more interesting, to me, anyway, than yet another wagyu course. An even more interesting choice than 'roo, which I also would've been happy with.

The vegetarian alternative: it should be mushrooms with mulled wine and pearl onions, but instead my mother was given Jerusalem artichokes prepared in the same fashion.

Silly me, I got so caught up in noting down all the elements of the first dish that I didn't actually take a photo of it! Instead, here's a photo of the decoration on the table. Why did I get a photo of it? Those little pods, they're quandong, a native fruit. And quandong (in their cooked form--those little pods weren't in an edible state) was part of the dish (entitled 'native fruits of Australia'), as was lemon aspin, rosella, 'emu eggs' (not eggs, but the nickname for some sort of berry-like fruit), rye berries, native lime and a wattleseed custard. There was also a granita made from some sort of native berry I didn't catch the name of: just imagine a big serve of granita atop the custard with some different poached fruits floating around. Nice. Basically a sexed up fruit salad.

'The plight of the bees' arrived in a little hive, on top of which sat a rock. This many-layered dessert included mandarin, fennel and lemon thyme granita, thyme honey, Jap pumpkin (it formed the 'skin' you can see being peeled back), apple and some sort of honey (a name was kicked out and I failed to catch it) that is made not by bees, but by aphids.

The petit fours arrive after you've had time to look at print of a painting by the chef's father. On the reverse is an essay that talks about birds and foraging and cooking. Why would something like this be sent to the table?

Because the petit fours are salted caramel-filled white chocolate 'Pukeko's eggs' (a species of bird from New Zealand).

Attica serves an excellent meal. If/when you're down in Melbourne, it's worth the detour and the 'effort' (i.e. booking a couple of months in advance and then actually leaving the confines of the CBD) to get out to the 'burbs.

Edited May 12, 2012 by ChrisTaylor (log)